


As We Received the Call

by LeftHandOfSnarkness



Series: SuperStrange [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, John and Jim are friends, Monster Hunters, war buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:54:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22669618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeftHandOfSnarkness/pseuds/LeftHandOfSnarkness
Summary: John wants to help his friend, he really does, but the problem is that his friend is too dumb to know when he is in over his head and needs to call for a professional.Companion piece to “I Was in the House When the House Burned Down,” this one from John’s POV. You don't need to have read that one for this one to make sense.
Relationships: Jim "Chief" Hopper & John Winchester
Series: SuperStrange [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630804
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	As We Received the Call

**Author's Note:**

> The title for this one comes from Jackson Browne’s “Song For Adam.” I went for a Jackson Browne song for this one, and a Warren Zevon one for the first work, because they remind me of John and Jim, a bit. A kind of prickly friendship with a lot of mutual respect for each other’s work. Also, like Warren, John is a bit of an asshole that is very, very good at his job. Anyway, I may or may not add another chapter to this one to go with the second chapter of “I was in the House When the House Burned Down.” For whatever reason this one ended up being way longer than I planned.

There aren’t all that many people John still keeps in touch with from his old life. Back when Mary had been alive there had always been folks around; friends of hers sitting and laughing in the kitchen, snot-nosed little brats she’d arranged to come over to play with Dean, other guys from the garage, who’d stand around chatting and drink beer as he barbecued some burgers. He’d had a normal life, and there was no shortage of normal people to fill it. That had all changed when Mary died- when suddenly the world of make believe was real and the real world seemed so fake- those people just sort of faded away like smoke. Besides, there wasn’t exactly time to keep in touch with a whole lot of people he hadn’t really liked all that much in the first place. He had monsters to learn about, two kids to keep track of, and a _something_ to hunt down and kill for murdering his wife. Beers with the guys stopped being a priority real quick. 

There were a couple of people, though, that stuck around. Clyde Browne, who had worked in the garage in Lawrence, had taught him how to be a mechanic instead of just a guy who knew about cars, and let John and the boys stay at his place after the fire, before John had taken the boys on the road and Clyde had moved out to Montana. Linda Harris, a girl he’d grown up with in Illinois, who’d been just as tough as any of the boys in town, who’d punched a bully and broken his nose when he had picked on John, back when he was just a skinny kid with a dad who’d walked out on him. She had moved to Chicago, got herself a nice house and a pretty girlfriend, and let him crash there and fed him a decent meal when he was cutting his way back and forth across the country. And then there was Jim Hopper. The guy who’d stuck to John’s side like glue in Viet Nam, who was always tripping along behind him when they went on patrol, who was always somehow getting himself into trouble whenever they managed to get out of the bush and into a bar. 

The getting into trouble part, at least, hadn’t changed much. 

They’d kept in touch, after the war. He’d been to Jim’s wedding and Jim had come to his, Diane and Mary had sent each other Christmas cards, and once or twice they’d both get a weekend off work and headed out for fishing trips that consisted of a lot of beer drinking and storytelling and very little actual fishing. And after Jim’s life had gone to shit (and John’s had followed soon after that) he’d checked in on him every now and then, just as he was headed from one hunt to another. Visited the little town his friend had moved to and said it was nice (it wasn’t), that Jim looked good (he didn’t), that he’d really fixed the place up (he hadn’t), and wondered why such a bad thing had to happen to a nice kid like Jim. 

So really, there were only a few people that John still kept in touch with who were civilians and so- sue him- he always made sure he kept an ear out for anything that seemed unnatural that might be happening around them. Clyde and Linda were easy- there wasn’t much happening that couldn’t be explained by animal maulings and dumb-ass hikers (in Clyde’s case) and gang violence and dumb-ass tourists (in Linda’s). But Jim, well, Jimmy’s little town seemed to just attract bizarre shit. It hadn’t been much, at first. A kid going missing was bad, sure, but kids ran away all the time. It happened. But then there was a local suicide. A couple of hunters who went to get themselves a buck and never came back. Another kid gone missing. Weird power surges. He’s wasn’t all sure what it added up to, it didn’t have a pattern like most monster attacks he was used to did. John wasn’t an idiot. He knew that there were plenty of weird-ass things that had perfectly normal explanations. Hunters had to learn not to leap immediately to the worst. No use scaring people with vampires and wendigos when a rabid dog and shoddy electric work might be the answer.  


By the time he’d swung into town, though, everything seemed…fine. The missing kid came back, the guy who killed himself turned out to be a vet who’d had some issues before, and the Staties said they had tracked the missing teenager to the city. He stays in town anyway, stands in the freezing-ass cold and waits for Jim to pull up to the trailer in that god-awful truck the town lets him use, gives him a big hug when he finally shows up, invites himself in for a beer. He waits until Jim has finished most of the six pack (god, does he think he is still 19?), before he says, as casually as he can manage, "Heard you've had some crazy shit going on up here, Jimmy." Jimmy looks up at him. Jimmy opens his mouth. And Jimmy lies his ass off. He’s always been a terrible fucking liar; doesn’t look you in the eye when he’s doing it, gives way too many details, taps his fingers on the table the whole goddamn time. But John can’t even bring himself to be mad, because something is going on in this little hick town, and Chief Hopper knows what it is. So John just grins at him and says “Sure, kid,” because he knows it will irritate him, and because it seems like, whatever it is, Jim has it under control.

Jim does not have it under control. 

That is very obvious, because less than a year later even more weird shit has happened, enough for it to reach the national news, enough for the receptionist at the Hawkin’s Police Department to tell any stranger who sits down and says they’re a friend of the chief’s all about it. John lays it on thick, smiling and telling stories and charming her until he’s gotten the story, the civilian story, anyway, about the Department of Energy and chemical spills and what-the-fuck ever. Sometime John has to remind himself that people believe what they want to believe; that there was a time when he would have bought that bullshit, too, instead of just seeing all the holes in it.  


When Jim finally shows up he drags him down to the VFW, plies him with $.50 beers, watches him sweat through the same story he just heard from Flo, and tries to decide how much, exactly, Jim knows. Figures that asking if they cremated the Holland girl’s body is as good of a test as any. Jimmy turns white as a sheet when he asks, but he doesn’t answer the question, and John’s left with the obvious conclusion that Jim has no fucking idea what he is doing. Great. But there doesn’t seem to be any kind of active threat right now, and John needs to get down to New Orleans to deal with the _very_ active threat of some witches, so he tells Jim to let him know if he ever needs any help, hopes he takes the hint, and leaves.

Jim does not take the hint. 

It’s yet another year later, and this time John figures out what the hell is going on before he even bothers to find Jim, since getting information out of him is like getting blood from a stone. The government does a pretty good job with the cover-up, but John is nothing if not good at passing himself off as the authorities, and you only need a couple of people to tell you about interdimensional monsters, kids with superpowers, and secret Russian bases before you get the picture. Hopper moved himself to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, which somehow manages to be even shittier than the trailer in the middle of nowhere he used to live in, but the Impala makes the trip just fine.  


"Russians, Jimmy, really? You trying to fight the Cold War all on your own?" he teases, and finally something clicks in Jim’s eyes, like he’s been trying to put a puzzle together and only just figured out where all the pieces go. And when he asks him what he has in the trunk all he can do is laugh and think _that’s my boy_ before clapping him on the shoulder, and, because he just can’t resist needling his friend, says "Next time you need help fighting monsters, do me a favor and give me a call, Jimmy. Your amateur hour shit is going to get you killed."


End file.
